Molex Connectors Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Molex) is a leading global provider of connectivity systems for the electronics industry. Molex's Chengdu factory primarily manufactures automotive connectors, high-speed communication interfaces, and automotive radar sensors. The factory houses a global automotive connector production line and a global mold center, serving major global automotive manufacturers and parts suppliers.
With the rapid pace of automotive product updates and the increasing complexity of customer needs, refined product categorization has become a crucial development challenge for automotive products. In response to this industry trend, Molex is transforming itself into a total solutions provider.
During this transformation, connector production must not only meet the needs of switching between diverse product lines, but also the requirements of intelligent manufacturing. To this end, production lines must achieve rapid switchover and interoperability, while also ensuring stability, accuracy, high output, and ease of maintenance. This places high demands on the automotive connector production and testing technologies at Molex's Chengdu plant.
Figure 1. Program illustration
Molex's Chengdu factory connector production line is a relatively complex automated assembly line, mainly composed of 5 assembly machines (feeder; cover assembly; sealing block and sealing ring assembly; subdivided terminal cover assembly; inspection and robotic packaging), which can meet the production needs of 5 series and more than 100 models of products.
Throughout the entire production line, the need for inspection is ubiquitous and permeates the entire production process. "For example, HSG damage detection, foreign object detection, and part number verification on the feeding machine all require accurate and rapid inspection equipment," said a technical engineer at Molex's Chengdu factory.
According to reports, the biggest challenge in inspecting this production line is "detecting the punching position of the fourth machine." During production, different product models require different punching sequence numbers, leading to inconsistent punching patterns and making it impossible to ensure the correctness of the punching sequence and the accuracy of the position for each product. "The most difficult product has 80 holes," emphasized a technical engineer at Molex's Chengdu factory.
Figure 2 Real-time detection example
"The testing equipment not only has to meet so many and complex product quality testing needs, but also has to be able to switch quickly." A technical engineer at Molex's Chengdu factory pointed out the testing challenges they face. "In addition, the testing equipment on the production line must communicate with each other and also upload and download the specific testing standards for the current product to the host computer."
To address the challenging inspection issues, Molex's Chengdu factory conducted research and carefully selected two vision inspection systems for verification and evaluation. These two technologies are a PC-based low-cost vision system and Cognex's In-Sight 5705 vision system.
Figure 3. Detailed architecture of the camera and light source
During the evaluation, technical engineers at Molex's Chengdu factory found that although the PC-Base low-cost vision system provides a complete integrated hardware and software solution, and users only need to familiarize themselves with the hardware and software parameter settings to configure and use it, "we found that the PC-Base low-cost vision system has numerous parameter settings and dazzling software options, which requires a long period of exploration and familiarization for engineers who are new to it." The technical engineers at Molex's Chengdu factory said, "Moreover, if the ambient light changes, the workpiece position is not fixed, the workpiece shape is uncertain, or the material changes, the PC-Base inspection system cannot reliably and effectively perform the relevant functions."
After rejecting the PC-Based low-cost vision system, the technical engineers turned to evaluate the In-Sight5705 vision system. They were pleasantly surprised to find that the In-Sight5705 vision system could perfectly solve the inspection challenges they faced, including all quality inspection requirements such as missing HSG, deformed seals, blocked holes, assembly errors, mixed materials, and color errors, and it also effectively eliminated batch variations in the production process.
"The In-Sight5705 vision system is highly integrated, with flexible software configuration, making it easier to use and deploy faster." Technical engineers have truly witnessed the convenience and increased productivity brought by the In-Sight5705 vision system. "This system not only has familiar algorithms and powerful software tools, but also offers multiple programming modes. We can use flexible spreadsheets or Easybuilder to design the programs we need, providing a high degree of freedom and customization."
Figure 4 shows the operation process for detecting changes in product punching using binary encoding.
Furthermore, the most challenging issue of inconsistent punching patterns on products was effectively resolved after applying the In-Sight 5705 vision system. "Binary encoding solves this problem very well, especially for detecting 80 holes," explained a technical engineer at Molex's Chengdu factory. "Through communication between the PC and the cameras, as well as between the cameras themselves, the order of all 80 holes is encoded using binary encoding to ensure real-time product information. The cameras acquire the punching sequence and part number information, then decode the binary information. Communication between the cameras ensures that the detected information matches the information sent by the PC, thus guaranteeing the correct punching sequence and position accuracy for each product."
Supported by the powerful inspection and processing capabilities of the In-Sight 5705 vision system, the production speed and product quality of the connector production line at Molex's Chengdu factory have been significantly improved. This not only allows for meeting the diverse inspection requirements of different products on the same production line, greatly reducing the company's investment and manpower, but also extends the production cycle, winning more customer orders and consolidating and enhancing the company's competitiveness and reputation.
“Cognex has strong technical reserves and comprehensive software algorithms. We chose the In-Sight 5705 vision system because Cognex can provide a complete solution from hardware to software, from In-Sight to VinsionPro, from simple start-up to deep customization,” said Manager Wang, the production manager of Molex’s Chengdu factory. “Now, Cognex has become our main vision solution supplier and will continue to provide advanced and effective technical support for the company’s production innovation.”
